The fortress contained other prisons far worse than that of the bastion. There was the Trubetzkoi Ravelin to the west of it, the cells in which are so dark that candles are burned in them for twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four. Their walls were literally dripping with moisture and there were pools of water on the floor. An account of the sufferings of some who were concerned in the “Trial of the Sixteen,” whose death sentences had been commuted to imprisonment in the ravelin, was published in the _Narodnaya Volya_. “Not only books were prohibited, but everything that might help to occupy the attention. Zubkovski made geometrical figures with his bread to practise geometry, and they were immediately removed by the gaoler, who said that hard-labour prisoners were not permitted to amuse themselves.” Of those whose sentences were commuted one became consumptive and another was attacked with scurvy and brought to death’s door. Two of the five condemned to hard labour in the same fortress went mad, and one attempted to commit suicide. One of a party transferred to the Moscow prison was so helpless from scorbutic wounds that he was carried out of the cellular wagon in a hand-barrow. Two fainted as soon as they were taken into the open air. Tatiana Lebedieva had been sentenced to twenty years’ hard labour. “But,” says the medical report, “she cannot live so long. Scurvy has destroyed all her gums; the jaws are visible beneath; she is moreover in an advanced stage of consumption.” Another, a mother, was nursing her eighteen months’ old baby, and every minute it seemed the child must die in her arms. As for herself, she did not suffer much, either physically or morally. Regarding the Alexis Ravelin on the eastern front, no very authentic details are forthcoming, but it is said to contain underground cells as bad as any _oubliettes_ in the dark ages. The only proof of their existence is to be found in the fact that a number of soldiers of the garrison were tried by court-martial for having conducted a clandestine correspondence for some of the prisoners, carrying out letters for them and smuggling in newspapers, money and other prohibited articles. The prisoners concerned were nameless. The inevitable fate of those committed to the Alexis Ravelin was to lose their identity; they were forgotten and became mere numbers, only distinguished by the numerals of the _oubliettes_ they occupied. This happened to one, Netchaiev, who killed a spy at Moscow and fled to Switzerland, from where he was extradited by the authorities of a free country, but on condition that he should be tried as a common-law prisoner. Netchaiev absolutely disappeared after he was tried at Moscow and sentenced to hard labour. There is no record of his incarceration in any central prison or of his departure for Siberia. It is nearly certain that he was lost to all knowledge in some hidden depth of the Schlüsselburg fortress.